# For bitching about language pedantry, other posters' language, and language in general **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 16, 2024, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-bitching-about-language-pedantry-other-posters-language-and-language-in-general/1003135 "2024-06-16T22:40:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-bitching-about-language-pedantry-other-posters-language-and-language-in-general/1003135/121 "2024-06-19T20:46:36Z")
The true “rules” (if that term may be used) of grammar are nothing codified, nothing written down. They are the product of neural structures in our brains that allow us to understand words in relation to each other instead of in isolation. In a word: syntax. It’s entirely natural, intuitive, and normally we aren’t even aware of it working, until attention is called to it. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-bitching-about-language-pedantry-other-posters-language-and-language-in-general/1003135/122 "2024-06-19T20:50:34Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > The true “rules” (if that term may be used) of grammar are nothing codified, nothing written down. Exactly. I wouldn’t call them rules, I’d call them mechanisms or systems or something like that. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-bitching-about-language-pedantry-other-posters-language-and-language-in-general/1003135/123 "2024-06-19T20:58:43Z")
> [@colinfred](#): > > Yeah, if she’s not going to stop with the "alot"s even after reading the Hyperbole and a Half strip, (which should stop anyone from ever doing it again), she’s not going to pay attention to this I know - I just wanted to be a pedant. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-bitching-about-language-pedantry-other-posters-language-and-language-in-general/1003135/124 "2024-06-19T21:01:23Z")
Eh. You loath, I loathe. My choice. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-bitching-about-language-pedantry-other-posters-language-and-language-in-general/1003135/125 "2024-06-19T21:07:49Z")
> [@What were you THINKING?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/2970): > > > [@colinfred](#): > > > > Yeah, if she’s not going to stop with the "alot"s even after reading the Hyperbole and a Half strip, (which should stop anyone from ever doing it again), she’s not going to pay attention to this > > I know - I just wanted to be a pedant. Not everybody gets to hang around all day waiting for someone to make a grammatical error for them to jump on. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-bitching-about-language-pedantry-other-posters-language-and-language-in-general/1003135/126 "2024-06-19T21:08:55Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Not everybody gets to hang around all day waiting for someone to make a grammatical error for them to jump on Hey, you had your chance! ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-bitching-about-language-pedantry-other-posters-language-and-language-in-general/1003135/127 "2024-06-19T21:11:48Z")
And I exercised great (for me) restraint. (But really I was just making a tortuous play on the similarity between “pedant” and “pendant.”) ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-bitching-about-language-pedantry-other-posters-language-and-language-in-general/1003135/128 "2024-06-19T21:19:45Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > (But really I was just making a tortuous play on the similarity between “pedant” and “pendant.”) Ooh, that went right over my head. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-bitching-about-language-pedantry-other-posters-language-and-language-in-general/1003135/129 "2024-06-19T21:29:19Z")
Where’s @wolfpup and the picture of _Alot_ I like alots, well…alot. Not one thing wrong with it. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-bitching-about-language-pedantry-other-posters-language-and-language-in-general/1003135/130 "2024-06-19T21:30:52Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#): > > I like alots, well…alot. It’s not a real world. But neither are kinda or gonna or dunno and I use them all the time. So I’m not gonna judge. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-bitching-about-language-pedantry-other-posters-language-and-language-in-general/1003135/131 "2024-06-19T21:33:36Z")
It’s my real _world_ Fix it quick. But know I saw it. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-bitching-about-language-pedantry-other-posters-language-and-language-in-general/1003135/132 "2024-06-19T21:35:13Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#): > > Fix it quick. But know I saw it. I ain’t gonna! ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-bitching-about-language-pedantry-other-posters-language-and-language-in-general/1003135/133 "2024-06-19T21:43:03Z")
> [@What were you THINKING?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/2978): > > > [@Beckdawrek](#): > > > > I like alots, well…alot. > > It’s not a real world. It’s already in the dictionary. [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/alot](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/alot) Note that English has a long history of combining “two words” into “one word”. I put quotes there because the difference is more orthography than usage. For example, “awhile”, “alone”, “today”, “instead” and many more were all two word phrases that became one word. ---
**Author:** ![pjd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pjd/32/3009_2.png) [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-bitching-about-language-pedantry-other-posters-language-and-language-in-general/1003135/134 "2024-06-19T21:44:54Z")
iswydt. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-bitching-about-language-pedantry-other-posters-language-and-language-in-general/1003135/135 "2024-06-19T22:03:40Z")
Well, now youse guys have gone and dunnit! I was trying to be a good dog even though I had something to say to the comment below, but I was loath (or, possibly, loathe, or both) to digress this thread alot more than it’s already been done digressed. And I didn’t feel the need to start a whole 'nuther thread, especially since I think most folks here don’t share my views on some aspects of linguistics. But, as I say, youse guys have gone and dunnit, so imma gonna speak my mind. > [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > I had a linguistics class where I did a presentation on L33T speak. I dunno if they still call it that but basically gamer’s lingo and how that evolved from the necessity of rapid communication via keyboard. And it was in that class I decided that, despite my strong English and literature roots, I am a descriptivist. You’re welcome to be a descriptivist, and in some sense all of us including me, excepting only the most extreme pedants, are descriptivists. But I want to make a few comments on this, not particularly to disagree with your general sentiment which I can appreciate, and certainly not to pick on you, but at least to say that I’m much less impressed by this phenomenon than you and many others seem to be. It seems to have become fashionably trendy to study and defend how kids talk to each other on social media, and indeed books have been written about it as if it was some profound linguistic revolution rather than ten-year-olds texting each other. The fact that these analyses of something so insubstantial have been well received reminds me a little of the fawning adoration by trend-obsessed media of the stereotyped bad novel that was parodied in the movie _American Fiction_. But juvenile slang is nothing new, and it’s often spurious and short-lived. The reason for this is that it’s often used to distinguish the identity of an in-group and/or to show how “cool” the speaker is (“cool” is one of those terms that did manage to stick around). Once it becomes widespread, or God forbid if parents, or worse, boomers, start using it, the cool in-groups will avoid it like the plague. Is anything “rad” any more? Is anything still “groovy”? Does “tubular” still refer to something exceptional? How about “righteous” for a tasty burger? Is a profound life observation “heavy”? Does "bad’ still mean “good” and is “wicked” something even better? Are “sup?” and “yo” still proper greetings? And then there’s “yeet” and “L33T”, the latter for some reason spelled with the numeral “3” instead of “E”. “Bitchin’” may or may not still be around. Does anyone still get “psyched” or “amped” any more? Is “YOLO” still a thing? We currently still have “Karen”, but before that there was the short-lived “Becky”. Examples of dead slang abound, depending on how far back you want to go and your particular demographic. They come and go like a rainshower on a summer afternoon. Most of it is of unknown origin, while other examples can be traced to trendy media like movies (“Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”) or TV series (“Seinfeld” eventually became rather annoyingly self-important about its ability to create memes). One strong counterexample of terms that have real endurance are those that were crafted by scientists and engineers to express important new concepts. Thus we have bioengineering, artificial intelligence, artificial general intelligence, fuel cell, transistor, CPU, GPU, ECU, solid state electronics, integrated circuits, the personal computer, local area networks, and even the internet itself which was still commonly called the ARPAnet at least until the mid- to late-80s. Each of these terms has a systematic origin rooted in sound principles of semantics and etymology. Whereas (at least in my view) studying how kids write on social media is at the same level as studying the babblings of an infant just learning to speak – which is to say, it may be of some academic interest, but it’s hard to see how it does anything to enrich the language in the same way as skilled creative writers and developers of new technologies defining new terms. > [@What were you THINKING?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/2968): > > The true “rules” (if that term may be used) of grammar are nothing codified, nothing written down. What are all these dictionaries and usage guides in the world’s libraries all about? They may not codify civil or criminal penalties for violating standards, but they certainly define the basic standards of our lexicon and sentence structures that facilitate human communication. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-bitching-about-language-pedantry-other-posters-language-and-language-in-general/1003135/136 "2024-06-19T22:08:12Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > so imma gonna speak my mind I think you mean, “Ima speak my mind”. Do try to keep up! ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-bitching-about-language-pedantry-other-posters-language-and-language-in-general/1003135/137 "2024-06-19T22:10:48Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > I think you mean, “Ima speak my mind”. Do try to keep up! So there **are** rules after all! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-bitching-about-language-pedantry-other-posters-language-and-language-in-general/1003135/138 "2024-06-19T22:19:55Z")
Sorry, that would be, “I ain’t _a’gonna_!” 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-bitching-about-language-pedantry-other-posters-language-and-language-in-general/1003135/139 "2024-06-19T22:19:56Z")
Language does have rules, the exact same way that Calvinball has rules. > [@Beckdawrek](#): > > Sorry, that would be, “I ain’t _a’gonna_!” Unfortunately I lack your sophistication. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-bitching-about-language-pedantry-other-posters-language-and-language-in-general/1003135/140 "2024-06-19T22:23:16Z")
Whatcha talkin’ bout? “Short lived “Becky”?” (dang, punctuation is hard in hick-speak) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-bitching-about-language-pedantry-other-posters-language-and-language-in-general/1003135.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-bitching-about-language-pedantry-other-posters-language-and-language-in-general/1003135.md?page=8)